Hurray for the Quezon City government, for carrying out its “Operation Baklas” to take down materials that are displayed in unauthorized places. The QC local government is not waiting for the start of the campaign period, during which the Commission on Elections can take down such materials except on private property.
Instead “Operation Baklas” implements a city ordinance, which prohibits at all times the placing of “streamers, stickers, decals, pamphlets, tin plates, cardboards, tarpaulins, printed notices, signboard, billboard, political propaganda” and other types of advertising paraphernalia in unauthorized locations, the QC government announced in a Facebook post.
Local government units and private enterprises charge ordinary people stiff rates and strictly enforce the authorized period for the display of advertising materials. Yet across the country, politicians display materials featuring their images and names anywhere they please, for free. Every flimsy excuse is used for such displays – to claim credit for tax-funded projects and programs, or ostensibly to greet residents on their fiesta or any public holiday.
Today, two weeks after the Yuletide season, there are still so many massive posters and streamers of politicians greeting the people a merry Christmas. The thought that such materials are polluting public space for free, and possibly at taxpayers’ expense, makes people disgusted rather than merry.
The failure to curb such activities, which always intensify during an election year, is another reflection of the weakness of governance in this country, with rules and laws skewed to favor whoever is in power. A Comelec effort to regulate the display of campaign materials was shot down by the Supreme Court. The SC, in a bizarre decision, ruled that there is no such thing as premature campaigning even after certificates of candidacy have been filed.
In the name of freedom of expression, the SC also ruled that the Comelec cannot stop the display of campaign materials on private property. This has effectively opened the floodgates to the display of such materials regardless of size on any property where the owner allows it, giving wealthy candidates an edge over rivals with modest means, and turning into a joke the Comelec rule on common poster areas.
Apart from paying private property owners for advertising space, candidates have brazenly posted their self-promoting materials on electric posts, walls and fences of public structures, and even on trees and public utility cables. Surely there are local ordinances and environmental laws that can be applied against such acts of pollution. In many cases, however, the local officials who are supposed to enforce such laws are the most blatant violators.
This makes the campaign of the Quezon City government all the more welcome. All it takes is political will to curb campaign abuses and clean up the environment.